


The Scent of Lavender (and Blood)

by bookworm213



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Remembers, BuckyNat Secret Santa, Espionage, F/M, Missions, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Red Room (Marvel), Scents & Smells, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-14 21:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9203198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookworm213/pseuds/bookworm213
Summary: Buckynat Secret Santa Prompt requested by @kingaofthewoods on tumblr: Bucky begins to remember Natasha starting with her scent.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kingaofthewoods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingaofthewoods/gifts).



He came out of cryo eventually. He couldn’t say he entirely wanted too. It was easier to be at peace in cryo, where he knew there was no way he could do harm to anyone, nor could anyone do harm to him. But the scientists had created acceptable safeguards against the programming HYDRA had buried deep within his brain, so it was the consensus that he should wake and learn to rejoin society. And he couldn’t allow the look of hope in Steve’s eyes at the prospect of him coming back to diminish again, so he agreed.

He keeps his head down as he walks down the hallway of the base, not letting himself meet Steve’s overly-hopeful gaze or Sam’s wary looks. It’s only when they reach the end of the corridor and a woman’s low voice finds his ears and he looks up. 

She wears a tank top that hugs her midsection and a pair of sweatpants. Her auburn hair is pulled into a ponytail and her eyes bore into his with a mixture of curiosity and quiet reserve. He stops, but before he can open his mouth she speaks first.

“Look who finally decided to join the living again.”

Her lips curve. There’s no malice in her voice. If anything, it sounds like she’s teasing him. He blinks for a second, unsure what to say, before Steve steps in.

“Buck, this is Natasha. Natasha Romanoff. You’ve . . . met a couple times.”

Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna. Born 1984. Graduate of the Red Room Academy and member of the KGB. Defected to SHIELD in the 2000’s. Skilled in espionage, hand-to-hand combat, and assassination. Neutralized with a clean shot through the left hip, Odessa 2009. Threat ended with shot to right shoulder, Washington DC, 2014. Subdued with bionic arm to throat, Berlin 2016 . . .

“A few times. Didn’t really get to know him though.” She smirks at him again, bringing him out of his haze. He feels the heat in his cheeks rising.

He finally finds his voice. “It’s . . .it’s nice to meet you. Officially.” He doesn’t say he’s sorry. Those words seem hollow and empty now, like he’d need to say them millions and millions of times to be worth a damn thing. Besides, there’s something in Natasha’s eyes as she gazes at him that makes him feel like she understands. Understanding and . . . something else. Longing? Remembrance? 

Natasha exchanges a few words with Steve and Sam, occasionally laughing and cracking jokes Bucky doesn’t understand. After a few minutes she turns to leave and brushes past her on her way down the hall.

“See you around Barnes.” She says to him softly. Her shoulder brushes against his, and the tangy scent of her sweat reaches his nose.

The same scent of a training mat, years ago. The redheaded woman throws herself at him barely having time to wrap her thighs around his head before he pins her to the mat. She’s panting, her body sweating with exertion, her face a mask of determination. 

He blinks, but she’s already turned the corner, and Steve is ushering him down the hallway once more. Natasha’s scent still lingers, a faint tap at the buried part of his mind, memories flickering like embers waiting to be ignited into flame.

—————————————————————-

Natasha is dressed in an evening gown that flows down to her knees, hair pinned back into a bun and a choker fastened around her throat that contains a tiny microphone and recorder. Her lips are painted red and she carries two handguns underneath her dress.

She looks almost like a dancer. (Was she a dancer?)

Bucky shifts a little in his seat, uncomfortably hot in the tux he borrowed from Steve. The opera drones on, and he vaguely remembers being 12 and uncomfortable and hot and his mother scolding him for fidgeting during the father’s sermon. He didn’t think he believed in God then; he most certainly doesn’t believe now.

He starts when he feels Natasha touch his hand, a faint tap at his wrist. “He’s on the move,” she whispers under her breath, directing his gaze up to the upper left theater box. Their target, an international arms dealer with a taste in illegal alien weapons, is standing up to leave, letting his entourage of followers and young models file out behind him. 

“The deal must be taking place now,” Natasha whispers again. “Time to move.”

Her body bats the air between them and her perfume carries over to him, a faint scent of lavender and jasmine that stuns him for a second. 

A motel on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. He kisses the hollow of her throat and breathes in the scent of her perfume. She moans deep and long and wraps her legs around his waist as he carries her to the bed, knocking over one of the lamps and shattering it as they topple onto the sheets. His senses are completely overwhelmed by the smell of lavender and jasmine, and he can barely concentrate enough to move his mouth from her throat to her breasts and breathe out one word.

“Natalia.”

“Come on Barnes.” Natasha is already out of her seat and moving towards the exit, and he hastily follows suit, shaking off the memory and filing it away in his brain for another time, another situation.

The opera singer trills on, her deep velvety voice more than adequate for masking the sounds of the deal being busted. He and Natasha are completely in sync as they take out the dealer’s guards, swiftly incapacitating them before they have a chance to cry out. The dealer pulls a gun and screams as the knife flies into his hand. The smell of gunpowder fills the air, a scent he’s all too familiar with to pinpoint a specific horrible memory connected to it.

He looks over at Natasha. She’s bending over the dealer in handcuffs, cellphone in hand, alerting Steve and Fury of the successful bust. Her bun is loose, the red hair almost blending in with the line of blood flowing from the cut on her head down to her left temple. 

He frowns. “Are you alright?” She looks up at him, her lips slightly parted and her eyebrow raised. He points to his own head, and she feels and touches the cut on her’s. “I’m fine Barnes,” she huffs in annoyance as she gathers up the suitcase full of alien tech they were tasked to retrieve. “I don’t need you looking after me.”

He shakes his head. “Natalia-“

The name freezes on his lips as she looks at him, her mouth falling open for a split second before her expression slams shut. In the seconds before that happens he can see her emotions: shock, uncertainty, hope? But then it’s over.

“I’m fine. And it’s Natasha now. I haven’t been called Natalia in a long time.” She says cooly, and he nods, his tongue feeling like cotton. 

Natasha stands. “We should be getting back, let the local cops handle the rest.” She says quietly as she moves past him. He catches the scent of her perfume again, but this time it’s tinged with the rusty scent of blood. 

She’s in an evening gown again, but it’s a different one. She stands over the defector, knife still in hand as he bleeds out on the floor. His wife and child lie not too far away. The soldier will give a satisfactory report to the Red Room. Target eliminated, no witnesses . . .

For a second he thinks he’ll be sick, but the nausea passes as quickly as it came. Natasha is already out of the hallway, and he follows her, still smelling jasmine and lavender and blood.

————————————————————————————

They develop a comfortable routine. They train, they do missions, and they begin to become something resembling friends. Bucky goes to movies and game nights with Natasha, Steve, and Sam. He begins to laugh and smile and remember. He remembers more of Natalia, how skilled she was at fighting and dance, the missions they went on and nights they shared before they were discovered and separated. He remembers the smell of Natalia’s skin and he longs to smell it again, but he can’t bring himself to tell her he remembers. With all that’s happened, he’s unsure, so unsure.

They’re training together one day, and she manages to pin him to the mat. Her body is heavy on top of his, and she wears a self-satisfied smirk as she holds him in place. He smells the tangy scent of her sweat, and he remembers all those nights lying beside her, the sweat cooling on their bodies in the night air. Without thinking, he leans his head towards and breathes in with half-lidded eyes. Then he feels her body go still. 

“Barnes . . . are you smelling me?”

His eyes snap open and he struggles for words. Then he notices she’s laughing. 

Natasha rolls off him, her body shaking with laughter as she rolls onto her back. Bucky feels the heat rising to his cheeks.

“Is my . . . sweat . . . that appealing to you Barnes?” She asks him when she can finally stop laughing. She sits up, her red ponytail falling over her left shoulder, and quirks an eyebrow at him. 

Before he can stop himself, he blurts out: “You smell like that night in St. Petersburg.”

Immediately Natasha’s smile drops. Without preamble, he keeps talking, “We had just completed a mission, and your dress was ripped and you where panting and bleeding, and I carried you to a hotel room. I . . . I knew it was against protocol, that I should leave behind any compromised agent, but I couldn’t because you where Natalia and you where hurt and I couldn’t . . .” He swallows. “And you smelled like lavender and sweat and blood and I patched you up and cleaned you off and you kissed me and treated me like a goddamn human being for the first time in so long and for that . . . they took me away. Put me back on ice and made me forget you and then I remembered . . . after I came out of cyro, these past few months. But I couldn’t say anything because I wasn’t sure if you cared, Hell, I wasn’t sure if you remembered . . .” 

He notices there are a few stray tears on his cheeks. Natasha is still watching him, her expression unreadable. After a moment, she inches closer to him and takes his flesh hand. She squeezes gently and looks into his eyes.

“When we fought in Berlin,” she says slowly. “I begged you to recognize me. I thought if it worked for Steve then maybe . . .” She swallows. “After I defected to SHIELD, for a while I tried to bury those memories, of you and the Red Room. I figured they where gone, and you where gone, and when I saw you in Odessa, and then Washington, and Berlin, after I figured out that the organization I thought I was helping do the right thing was one goddamn lie, I decided finally to trust my own instincts. And part of that was realizing that you deserved a chance to heal, and remember, without the Accords locking you in a prison.”

She inhales slowly and looks at him again. “But I didn’t tell you about before because . . . well I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back so deeply into my past again, even if you where,” she looked into his eyes. “The one good thing about it.”

Bucky took a deep breath, and saw Natasha raise a brow at him again. “And apparently you remembered because of the way I smelled?” 

And suddenly Bucky starts to laugh, his first genuine laugh in 70 years, he’s nearly sure. It doesn’t take long for Natasha to join in. Soon they’re both on the floor, tears rolling down their cheeks, until Bucky sits up and wraps Natasha in a hug.

“Natalia.” He breathes and buries his head in the crook of her neck, breathing in her scent and all the memories that come with it. He hears her chuckle and slowly wrap her arms around him.

“James . . . if you think I’m ever going to let you live this down, you’ve got another thing coming.”

Bucky nods, and continues to breathe Natasha in, feeling drunk on happiness and the intoxicating scent of her skin.


End file.
